Jungle boost for peace process

Three years ago, Jan Egeland, the United Nations Emergency Coordinator, visited the fetid, muddy camps hosting thousands of civilians displaced by conflict in northern Uganda, and described the situation as "the most forgotten humanitarian crisis in the world", adding, "[I have been] shocked to [my] very bones".

With Egeland highlighting the crisis at every opportunity, the world started paying attention to the plight of thousands of children who walked miles every evening to seek shelter from the soldiers of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Stories of children who had not been so lucky, who had had their lips cut off or been forced to kill their friends and join the rebel ranks, began emerging in the media.

Three years on and things have changed. As an uneasy peace holds across northern Uganda, Egeland returned for a final trip to the region in November before retiring from his position. But would he come face to face with the man many believe to be responsible for the suffering, LRA leader Joseph Kony, the man perhaps best placed to bring it all to an end?

Kony had wanted the meeting – hoping that Egeland could help get him off the hook with the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has lined up charges of crimes against humanity against the rebel leader. But previous visitors had waited more than a week in the bush to meet the reclusive Kony only to be turned away, so nothing could be taken for granted.

On 11 November, Egeland held meetings with peace talks delegates in the south Sudanese capital Juba and put his demands to the LRA representatives: if Kony wanted to meet him, there would have to be a 'humanitarian gesture'. Women, children or wounded fighters should be released as a confidence-building measure.

Minutes later, the LRA delegates left the conference room and disappeared into one of Juba's many tented villages to consult their leaders holed up in the forests of Garamba national park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). After they came back, Egeland took the satellite phone and paced up and down as he tried to negotiate the terms of a meeting. "I still haven't decided," he told reporters.

Off to the jungle

The tent where the meting between UN’s Jan Egeland and the Lords Resistance Army (LRA), took place at Ri-Kwangba, on the Sudan-DRC border.

Later, it was decided the meeting would take place after all. But the issue of what it would achieve was still far from clear. Would the team fly out to the forest only to withdraw if a 'humanitarian gesture' was not forthcoming? Still, the three UN helicopters took off, leaving the dry scrub of Juba for the lush equatorial forests of the DRC border.

They landed at the small Sudan People's Liberation Army garrison of Nabanga where Egeland disappeared into a hut with the talks’ mediator and south Sudanese Vice-President Riek Machar for some final deliberations. It turned out that the meeting with Kony would take place in Ri-Kwangba, one of two places designated in the truce agreement as assembly points for LRA soldiers.

Ri-Kwangba was seven kilometres away, but the rutted road was sometimes more of a stream than a track. At a checkpoint, the soldiers’ short dreadlocks and gumboots were tell-tale signs that Egeland’s team was finally in LRA territory. Courteous but thorough in searching the cars, the soldiers were clearly suspicious and demanded all phones be switched off in case they revealed the camp co-ordinates. "We are serious. No GPS," said the checkpoint commander to one UN officer. "Make no mistake."

Another 200 metres and the road opened into a muddy clearing ringed with thick foliage. The few huts dotted around were in a sorry state, shelters rather than homes. It was clear that despite the new truce agreement, the rebels had yet to assemble at Ri-Kwangba, preferring their far better equipped camp over the border in the park. A few boys gripping automatic weapons lounged around the clearing, leaning against bags of rotting food.

Soon a line of soldiers appeared through the trees, led by a dreadlocked man in dark glasses and a green AC Milan tracksuit. Some had guns, others plastic furniture ready for the court that was about to take place under a tarpaulin emblazoned with the UN children’s fund (Unicef) logo. Egeland sat on opposite sides of the tent to the LRA's deputy leader Vincent Otti.

The waiting game continued until Kony arrived in the clearing sporting camouflage fatigues and a green military cap. "This is the man who you have kept waiting," chided a smiling Machar. The two spoke for more than 20 minutes in private. Then reporters were told to move and Egeland met Kony.

Great expectations, poor outcome

Lords Resistance Army (LRA) deputy leader, Vincent Otti, at the talks with Egeland in Ri-Kwangba, southern Sudan on the border with DRC.

At the end of the meeting, it was clear both Egeland and Kony had failed to achieve all their aims. Egeland did not convince the rebels to release women or children, and Kony did not convince Egeland to influence the ICC to drop charges against the rebel leaders.

Egeland, however, put on a brave face. "It was the first time we have been able to impress on the highest command of the LRA the whole range of humanitarian issues, such as the need for a genuine cessation of hostilities and [the] return [of] those they've abducted," he told reporters.

When it was Kony’s turn to answer brief questions from the press, he seemed uneasy, fidgeting and blinking. Asked whether he would be releasing any children he retorted: "We don’t have any children in our movement. There’s [sic] only combatants.”

Even so, Egeland believed that by engaging Kony in dialogue and by drawing the LRA into serviced assembly points, the path back to the village would look far more alluring than the path back to the struggle. One wounded LRA fighter was receiving treatment in Juba and Egeland hoped he would be the first of many. The UN, he said, would provide medicine, education and food to both assembly areas via the Catholic relief agency, Caritas.

Already, the civilians Egeland first met across northern Uganda, penned into overcrowded camps by terror, have started going home. "We have 10,000 people who have returned and hundreds of thousands are now thinking of returning to their ancestral lands," he said. "If we succeed we can get peace to break out in the larger region. If we don't succeed then it will have catastrophic consequences for everybody - the parties and for the civilians; not only in northern Uganda but in south Sudan and the [DR] Congo too.”

Sensing progress, the UN is now looking to appoint an envoy to help boost the talks and stabilise northern Uganda, south Sudan and the DRC – something that seemed to weigh heavily on the mind of northern Uganda Archbishop, Joseph Odama, after the team returned from meeting Kony. Thanking Egeland for the high priority he had given the conflict during his time as Under-Secretary-General, Odama let slip that the region would be happy if such a planned appointment involved the quiet but forceful Norwegian.

However, said Egeland: "I'm just looking forward to returning to Oslo and seeing more of my family." Whether this will really be the last bush meeting between Egeland and Kony remains to be seen, but the jungle meeting of 12 November was certainly a boon for the on-off peace process.

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